Thursday, September 23, 2010

The Sisters of Mercy – Body Electric (CNT Productions, 1982)

From the tone of this blog it could easily be inferred that I have a major axe to grind with The Sisters, but nothing could be further from the truth. They were after all, the band that introduced me to Goth, and a group I’ve loved ever after first seeing Patricia Morrison astride that huge black horse in the video for “Dominion”.

Of course, responsibility ultimately rests with them for developing the sound that would come to dominate the second wave of Goth, but it seems highly unfair to blame them for the legion of cookie-cutter, Goth-by-numbers clones that would explode out of labels like Cleopatra & Nightbreed throughout the nineties. Indeed, The Sisters always went to pains to avoid the label of “Goth” as though it were an infectious disease.

While their debut single (The Damage Done, Merciful Release, 1980) was done for pure ego, so Andrew Eldrich and Gary Marx could “hear themselves on the radio”, and is perhaps better forgotten, their second attempt was another story.

“Body Electric”, a tale of acid trips completely devoid of any naïve hippy insistence that this drug would somehow magically induce spiritual insight, and its B-side, the twisting beast that was “Adrenochrome” were massive statements of intent. The Sisters had introduced a completely new impulse into the post-rock/goth equation: the garage punk of Iggy and the Stooges, and the odd electronica of Suicide and with drums courtesy of Dr Avalanche – a drum machine. No one could have foreseen where this would lead.

Boy, do you think this one might just possibly be a bootleg?

The Alice7”/12” (1982), Anaconda 7”(1983) and The Reptile House EP (1983) all followed before the style was completely refined, manifesting as the Goth classic Temple of Love 7”/12”(1983, all on the band’s own label Merciful Release) which, for better or worse, would set the template for much that would follow in the nineties. All these early singles and The Reptile House EP can be found on the compilation Some Girls Wander By Mistake (Merciful Release / Eastwest, 1992).

The Temple of Love 12"

They’re still going, if only on the European festival circuit. It’s been 17 years since their last release (Under the Gun, Merciful Release, 1993) and 20 years since their last full-length album (Vision Thing, originally on East/West Albums, 1990). This in itself and the Sisters’ lasting legacy has nevertheless produced delicious ironies as friends of mine running a Goth/Industrial record store in the late 90s would discover, when confronted by a confused young man asking if they had a copy of “Temple of Love” by “that band who sounds like Rosetta Stone”.

Never fear though. I rather doubt this blog is done discussing the sordid history of The Sisters of Mercy just yet. Next stops…First & Last & Always and the Sisterhood saga.

A Welcome and Introduction

Plunder the Tombs was started back in 2010 by way of looking back on a musical past that I felt in sore need of curation.

It was a strange and sad time when what passed for “Goth” in clubs seemed a pale imitator of what once was, following first a decade of cookie-cutter Sisters of the Nephilim clone bands and then another decade of industrial dance being palmed off to younger audiences as a type of faux goth. When on rare occasion DJs in “Goth” clubs did finally become brave enough to play something like Bauhaus it was not untypical to have the dance floor clear, and it became obvious that the memory, meaning and legacy of much that had gone before had been lost.

It’s probably safe to say that the boundaries of what was “Goth” were never clearly defined. An absolute blessing for those bands on the original scene before it had a name pinned to the donkey, but an outright curse for those who came later and found rules had been imposed to dictate that which was and that which was not acceptable. Worse still was to come in the 90s from a lazy and unquestioning media who simply assumed that anything that wore black and make up was by definition “Goth”, thus allowing all manner of pretenders licence, and maximising confusion as to what the term actually referred to.

This has gone on for way too long and its time is at an end. Neo Post-Punk bands now proliferate across Europe, old long dead Goth bands rise from their crypts in the UK, and new deathrock bands are breeding like rabbits up the west coast of America. It is time to reclaim our scene back from metal bands and ravers in disguise.

While the Plunder the Tombs of old focused on what had gone before, there are now far too many exciting new things to ignore. We roar back to life in a reboot, covering past , present and things yet to come.

Let us plunder the tombs….

About Me

A DJ throughout the 90s at numerous Goth night clubs in Perth including The Cell, Dominion and others he was probably far too drunk to remember, largely as a result of his preference to work for bar tabs over cash. Also helped found 6RTR fm's Goth & Industrial showcase Darkwings.
More recent projects include the currently dormant Descent - a small night dedicated to playing genuinely good Goth music both old and new in preference to packing the dance floor with songs everyone had heard 20 million times before. He currently runs a monthly show on Behind the Mirror on 6RTR fm which can be heard on Wednesdays at 11pm WST.
Rumour has it he once masterminded an ill-advised Goth fanzine "Small Pleasures" that in retrospect, he remains profoundly grateful never made it off his desk.